


you mistake porch lights for the stars (mistake her name for the moon)

by possibilist



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, everything is hollstein & nothing hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:56:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2713072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilist/pseuds/possibilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You laugh for a few moments and then kiss her again—you get to kiss her, and you’ve fallen in love, so in love, laid your life down and up and toward so that you never have to lose again: Heidegger’s pretty, pretty altar, but instead of white you were draped in black, soaking up all of the colors, letting them seep into you—and they’re beautiful; god, they’re beautiful.'</p>
<p>hollstein, fluff post 36. canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you mistake porch lights for the stars (mistake her name for the moon)

**Author's Note:**

> because how long have we waited to type 'canon' on a fic like this.

**you mistake porch lights for the stars (mistake her name for the moon)**

.

_i want to know i’m here/ every single part of me/ my heart open as the river’s eyes/ the first time it sees the ocean/ my god, look at those waves/ listen to that thundering tide/ can you imagine anything more frightening?/ can you imagine anything more alive?_  
—andrea gibson, ‘wasabi’

//

You laugh for a few moments and then kiss her again—you get to  _kiss_ her, and you’ve fallen in love, so in love, laid your life down and up and toward so that you never have to lose again: Heidegger’s pretty, pretty altar, but instead of white you were draped in black, soaking up all of the colors, letting them seep into you—and they’re beautiful;  _god_ , they’re beautiful.

/

It was so dark, so dark and you were so warm, so cold, and it burnt.

Dying tasted like stars.

/

Most of what you’ll remember is that you wished, in that moment, that someone was holding your hand: you are terrified and eighteen and maybe this sacrifice is going to save you too, because what is redemption if not:  _you are going to die for love._

/

Waking up is at once heaven and hell—you are never going to die; blood tastes stale in your mouth; Laura’s hands are warm and lovely and gentle and, in so many ways— _yours._

_/_

Laura won’t kiss you fully—kiss you like you’ve wanted to kiss someone for three and a half centuries, with holiness in your jaw—until she makes sure you’re okay.

You mostly are, you think, at least physically. You’re exhausted, and you have no idea what had happened to your body in that pit, what another non-death did, but you really just feel sore, like you’d gotten beaten up or fallen down the stairs, and your ribs pinch.

“I just need a shower,” you say.

Laura looks at you skeptically. “But you  _died_.”

“I’m sure I smell terrible because of that.”

Laura laughs and makes a big show of sniffing your shirt and then scrunching her nose. “Absolutely awful. I can’t believe I ever wanted to kiss you.”

You scoff and kiss her again.

/

It’s intimate—the most intimate thing you’ve done in such a long time—when she insists to come into the bathroom with you.

“I know we’ve kiss,” you say, “but I don’t know if we’re quite ready for shower sex yet, sweetheart,” you say, and grin when Laura’s entire face flushes pink.

“That is  _not_ —well, maybe one day,” she says, and if you could blush too, you would be.

You’re both quiet for a few moments, distracted by want, but you are so tired, and Laura shakes her head.

“I need to know you’re okay,” she says.

You nod, and you lift your arms when she tugs your shirt over your head.

You hiss because the ribs on your left side pinch, and she makes a tiny gasp, and she shakes her head and brushes the hair out of your eyes before you look down and see a big, dark bruise over your ribcage. “Must’ve fallen a little hard,” you say as she ghosts her fingers against it.

“Carmilla,” she says sternly, but she smiles a little bit.

“I mean, I died,” you say, “it’ll be fine in a day or two, just a bruise.”

She sighs, then unbuttons your pants, which sends an involuntary shiver down your spine.

Laura stares  _hard_ at your breasts for a moment and then shakily says, “In all of the ways I imagined taking your stupid leather pants off, it was never this.”

“So there were multiple scenarios, then?”

Laura flushes again and you can’t help but kiss her on the edge of a laugh.

“I can’t imagine you  _only_ having bad dreams.”

“I did  _not_ —“

“I’m flattered, don’t worry.”

She unceremoniously yanks your pants down in response, and you have a few bruises on your legs, but that’s it.

Laura can’t seem to look away from your underwear—and, to be fair, it’s a red thong; leather pants really aren’t suited to anything else—and then all of a sudden she says, “I have to leave now before I—you know,” and then pecks your lips before darting from the bathroom.

You use her shampoo and conditioner and laugh through your entire shower.

/

Laura’s ordered pizza, which makes you laugh, but, “Carm, what else am I supposed to do right now?”

You smirk and her eyes get darker, and then you kiss her, you lay her down on your bed and she tangles her hands in your hair and slips a thigh between yours, and you don’t even mind the whimper that makes its way from your mouth.

You palm her breasts and she bites your lip  _hard_  and scrapes her nails down your back under your shirt. She pushes you back a little bit after she squeezed your ass, and you’re exhausted and heady and a little dazed, because her lips are swollen and red.

“You’re crying,” she says, and it surprises you, but you are.

“I thought I’d never get to kiss you,” you say, and your voice is rough and so, so young.”

She sighs beneath you and then presses on your hip, and you roll over so that you’re facing each other on your sides, tangled legs and laced fingers, and she leans forward and kisses the tears on your cheeks.

“Do you like Margaret Atwood?” she asks.

It makes you laugh a little bit. “Look at you, being well-read.”

She rolls her eyes and kisses you and it’s oceans and you’d have never guessed you’d be the one someone quoted poetry to—you have never been a blessed creature before—but Laura whispers, “This morning I love you like salt.”

/

You eat a few pieces of pizza and Laura watches you carefully. “I’m not going to break or something, cupcake,” you say, your mouth full.

She pulls a face and you laugh and she says, “You’re a terrible roommate.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say. 

/

She lays down and you put your head on her chest before you can even think of how not-aloof and not-cool it is. She runs her hand through your hair lazily, working through tangles, and you’re fighting to stay awake, because you don’t know what you’re going to see when you fall asleep, but then she says, “You can sleep, Carm. I’ll be right here.”

You nod and close your eyes and her heartbeat is glimmers of something more alive than dust, and it’s never felt like more of a benediction.

/

You sleep for a few hours and then wake with a yawn, and Laura’s managed to get the yellow pillow half under your head, the rest in her lap, as she messes with your hair and reads.

You sit up lazily and rub your eyes, and she smiles at you.

“Rilke, huh?” You gesture toward the book in her hands, which is actually one of your many first editions.

“I’m working on my German,” she says, and you kiss her cheek.

“He’s not the easiest guy to do that with.”

She’s unusually quiet, and then she says, “I couldn’t—your handwriting, and your books, you were still here in them and I couldn’t—“

You shake your head and kiss her so softly it hurts, and then you take the book from her hands, close it like you would a bible. “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage,” you say, and she gives you a watery smile. “Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

She shakes her head and she looks at you with such bravery, and she says, “God, you’re such a nerd.”

You roll your eyes.

Then she says, “I do love you, you know.”

You’ve waited a very, very long time for those words, so you don’t say anything; you let her breathe into your mouth; you soak it up in your still-alive lungs.

/

“Hold my hand,” she says, and you shake your head. “Why not, Carm?”

“I have to look tough still.”

She booms a laugh, and you can’t help but smile, and she goes to turn the webcam on before sitting down next to you and firmly grabbing your hand, which you tug back behind the pillow. Laura rolls her eyes but you don’t let go.

/

“Where are you—do you have a place to stay this week?” she asks you, quickly packing her things.

You shrug—you’d been thinking of going to Budapest, and you have an inordinate amount of money, so technically, you could stay anywhere you wanted. 

“Would you—I don’t want to—come home with me?”

You haven’t had a home since you died that first time, since you were eighteen.

You don’t want to let her out of your sight, either, so you nod. “Okay.”

She beams at you and continues to pack.

/

She wraps you in a soft scarf and pulls your hat down over your ears and you say, “Okay, mom,” and then it takes your breath away.

She stands a little unsure before you shake your head and steady yourself—you’d loved your mother, which is the most confusing thing, but you understand, at least logically, what abuse means.

Laura kisses your forehead and says, “You should wear your hair back more often,” and then takes your hand.

You carry her bag and make your way to the train.

/

Her father tries to be intimidating but then Laura takes him into another room and you shove your headphones in—you don’t want to hear what she tells him, don’t want to hear,  _She got hurt and she has no home because her mother died last week_ , because then it’s too real—but when they come back into the room and you take your headphones out and her dad smiles at you with a mix of pity and approval and pride.

“Do you want some cocoa?” he asks, and you roll your eyes with a laugh.

/

You lay on Laura’s childhood bed after sneaking out of the guest room you were supposed to be sleeping in—you’d agreed with a shrug even as Laura protested; you can turn into a cat and  _poof_ places, so it doesn’t really matter, you can sleep in Laura’s bed without any trouble.

It starts slow, and her skin is lovely. You memorize her wrists, the perfume that lingers there; her stomach is the kind of soft-hard that makes your mind spin with want. Her breasts are small, lovely. 

She makes your palms ache, and you maybe it’s something like the opposite of grief and still grief itself, because you make love in her small bedroom, and you she kisses you like she understands the childhood you’ve never had, the childhood you’ve never left.

Her hands find purchase on the ripped wings of your shoulderblades, and you are no angel, but this is not any sort of ending, and here you are, tacked plastic constellations above you in blessing, let loose in the sacred dark.

Laura tastes like stars.


End file.
